Artemis Invaded

Sleeping on a bed was nice, even if Adara did have to share the creaking frame with Sand Shadow. Nonetheless, the huntress woke with the dawn. Ambling into the kitchen, she found the widowed cousin who served as the family’s cook and housekeeper slicing slabs from a ham and dropping them into a skillet. They exchanged greeting while Adara cut herself bread and smeared it with thick strawberry jam.

The family that was not quite hers kept farmer’s hours. Bread and jam or bread and cheese would hold them until the milking was done, eggs gathered, cows turned out to pasture, horses fed, and routine tasks attended to. Then they would meet for a larger meal that would sustain them until noon.

From bitter experience, Adara had learned that the scent of Sand Shadow that clung to her made domestic livestock nervous, so she didn’t offer to help. Instead, she settled herself on a three-legged stool on the porch and amused herself between bites of bread and jam with carding wool.

Neenay found her there. Sliding behind her spinning wheel, she started pumping the peddle. When the process of transforming fluff into yarn was under way she said, “Hektor left with first light. Even if he does stop at the cobbler’s, I suspect you’ll have news of Spirit Bay before lunch. Will you be staying on after?”

Adara licked a bit of jam off one finger so it wouldn’t soil the wool and considered. “It depends on the news. If there’s nothing, I might stay a day or so. Bruin is with Griffin and Terrell, so they won’t starve.”

Adara shook her head. “More pining to be away, if you want to know. Mother, I never said I didn’t want a…” She almost said “mate” as the hunters did, then corrected herself to politer use. “A husband, but I want one who will be a partner, too. I’m not sure either of those two would put up with me for long once the shine had worn off. I’m not the easiest person to deal with.”

Neenay chuckled. “Tell me about it.” She grew more sober. “But you like them?”

“Both. Very much. I’d give my life for either of them.” Adara paused. “But I’m not sure I could give my life to either of them … Does that sound as strange to you as it does to me?”

Neenay surprised Adara by shaking her head. “It’s a mistake many a young woman—especially one with interests beyond the usual—makes. Some women are perfectly content with the roles our bodies built us for—bearing children, then raising them—just as some men have no desires beyond following in their fathers’ trades, farming the same land, living in the same house. There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way either. But for those whose gifts lead them outside those expected paths, there’s always the question of what to choose.”

“I say if you choose a man, make sure it’s one who makes you feel as if you’re choosing for the larger life, not the smaller. If you choose to settle and have children, then you should feel the joy of it, not that you’re imprisoning yourself. Equally, if you choose to follow—say—a hunter’s path, you shouldn’t feel as if you’ve shut yourself out of a life you would have loved but feared as too ‘ordinary.’”

Adara nodded. “Then, by those terms, I’m not ready yet for any decision. Since I think that both Terrell and Griffin honestly care for me—though each after his own fashion—then, much as the idea is inviting, I need to stay out of their blankets. I don’t want to give any false hopes.”

But, she thought, I wish it wasn’t so complicated. I am as itchy as a cat in heat and knowing there are two good-looking men who would be glad to scratch the itch makes it …

Momentarily, she considered finding some anonymous stranger, maybe up in Crystalaire, and giving him a surprise. She put the idea from her as imprudent for many reasons. She had just realized that she had shredded the bit of wool she’d been carding when the patter of feet coming around the side of the house, accompanied by an image from Sand Shadow, saved her from her thoughts.

Elektra came running up. “When I brought the eggs in, Cousin Thelma said that breakfast was about ready. Dad’s washing out at the pump. Nikole said she’ll be by to say ‘hi’ once the little ones are settled.”

Adara stood and brushed wool off her trouser legs. “And Sand Shadow says a wagon is turning in from the town road. Orion, Willowee, and Hektor should be with us before we finish eating.”

Her prediction proved correct. Willowee came in as Cousin Thelma was rising from the table to turn the ham steaks she had put in the pan when the wagon had rumbled into the farmyard. She gave Adara a quick hug, then slid onto the bench next to Elektra.

“The boys are putting up the horses,” she said, accepting the mug of tea Akilles had shoved toward her. “Hektor told us that Adara was here, looking for news of Spirit Bay.”

“And you have some,” Adara said, smiling encouragement at her sister-in-law. “I can’t wait to hear.”

Willowee didn’t hesitate. “Dad had already told us some but, after Hektor let on you were interested, we got Dad to tell us all over again, saying Hektor would like the tale. We got a few more details then.”

Willowee suddenly looked uncertain. “It isn’t much, really. I don’t know if you realize how much of an upset there has been. Although the Sanctum was flooded, it seems that no one is willing to believe the Old One is dead. Loremasters from all over the region are gathering to discuss what to do with the Sanctum, and how to handle the Old One should he show up and try to move back in now that the water is gone.”

Terrell had brought news of the first part of this, but Adara could almost feel her ears prick forward at Willowee’s final statement.

“The water’s gone? I saw the place myself before we left Spirit Bay. It was flooded right up to the ground floor and there was several feet of standing water above ground, too. Do you mean that the ground floor is clear?”

Willowee shook her head emphatically. “No. From what Dad said—and he went to look before the loremasters cordoned off the area—even the lower levels were free of standing water. Dad didn’t get to go down, but he did get as far as a big staircase. He said there was plenty of mud and slime, but all the standing water had drained away.”

Hektor and Orion came in then, and Hektor said, “Has she gotten to the bit about the lights?”

Willowee glowered at him. “Not yet. Stuff your mouth with ham and let me tell the tale properly.”

Willowee nodded. “After the Sanctum was flooded, lots of people went there searching for the Old One’s body. His two servants were fine—they’d been sleeping in a summerhouse, to get out of the heat. Later, when the Old One’s body was nowhere to be found, the loremasters and town government agreed that no one was to poke around. That didn’t mean they left the place unsupervised. After all, it is a seegnur artifact. You know how the Sanctum’s on a small peninsula?”

“Guards were set at the base of the peninsula to discourage people tromping out there from the landside. Boats were set to patrol on the water side. Nothing much happened for a few days.”

Adara knew some of this, having been among those who had helped with the initial search, but she nodded encouragement, sensing Willowee was getting near the exciting part of her tale.

“First came the sounds,” Willowee said, dropping her voice as if telling a ghost story, her eyes shining. “None of the folk Dad talked to could agree exactly what the sounds were like. Some said they heard a sucking sound like the water draining off through some hidden channels. Others swore the sounds were more rhythmic and had to come from some machine—pumps or siphons. Thing is, no one wanted to look too closely … Not only was there fear that the place was now haunted, but the loremasters were flat-out against anyone going in there. When the lights were seen…”

Willowee nodded. “Lights and not just any lights. These were faint and dim. Those who glimpsed them swore that these lights did not flicker as would a torch or lantern, but shone steady and with a blue-green cast.”

Elektra asked, “Did everyone run away then? I would have. I would have screamed.”

“No one wanted to get close, that’s sure,” Willowee agreed. “My dad was out on one of the patrol boats. Eventually, he convinced the rest of the crew that it was their duty to take a closer look. They landed near the point and went ashore. That’s when Dad saw that the building wasn’t flooded anymore. They didn’t go any farther that day, just went and told the loremasters.”

Her voice dropped. “Later, one of Dad’s friends told him that when the loremasters screwed up their courage and went to take a closer look they found footprints in the mud on the bottom level—human footprints. A tracker said there might have been as many as half a dozen people there—but there were no prints in the mud on the ground floor when my dad and his friends from the patrol boat went in—not a single one.”

“No one knows,” Willowee said. “Some folks are saying it’s the ghosts of the seegnur come to haunt the Sanctum in punishment for the sacrilege done there by the Old One Who Is Young.”

“The ghosts took long enough,” Hektor scoffed, although there was more than a little bravado in his voice. “He’s been living there for generations.”

“Do ghosts leave footprints?” Elektra asked, her voice trembling just a little bit.

“They don’t,” Adara said. “If ghosts did, Bruin would have taught me to track them and he didn’t.”

Elektra looked relieved. Adara felt good about that. She decided against telling what she knew about tunnels between the mainland and the Haunted Islands. That would undo any comfort she’d offered. Those who knew had decided that information should not be allowed out until they were certain the Old One was gone. Now it seemed that he was not, for who else could have left the prints?

Something had been in the Sanctum, something that had left footprints. Julyan and the Old One? Perhaps some of their lackeys? Was there any connection between Willowee’s tale and whatever had splashed into Spirit Bay? Adara didn’t see how there could be, but had she been Sand Shadow, the fur along her spine would have risen.

“Interesting,” she said, rising from the table and easing her tension in a spine-cracking stretch. “Very interesting. Now, let me pay for my breakfast by helping unload the wagon. Then I’m off to the mountains once more. Griffin and Terrell must hear this tale.”

“The tunnel is blocked ahead,” Falkner announced, “just beyond the bend.”

He was looking at some device on his scooter. Julyan had noticed that the man spent much time looking at these, even when he was driving. He wondered if Seamus found it as creepy as he did.

But then Seamus is used to the Old One Who Is Young poking around in his head. There’s probably very little he finds odd. At least Falkner pays attention to his surroundings. Alexander’s been so busy talking that we would have hit the wall a couple of times if the force shield hadn’t bounced us off.

He wondered, not for the first time, if Alexander was doing this on purpose, to make him jumpy. Certainly, Alexander knew how much Julyan hated surrendering control to anyone else.

“Looks like a transit capsule,” Falkner continued a moment later. “A big one.” Siegfried was unholstering the weapon he wore near one hip. Falkner cautioned him, “Don’t shoot at it. If I were setting a trap, I’d arrange for it to trigger when someone tried to blow a hole in the capsule.”

Siegfried replied grumpily. “I wasn’t going to shoot at it. I wanted to be prepared.”

Julyan didn’t believe him. Back when they’d been clearing out the debris crammed into the tunnel between Mender’s Isle and the mainland, Siegfried had resorted to one of his weapons to break larger things into smaller. This had filled Julyan with a mixture of envy and fear. A ray of greenish-blue light had flowed out, surrounded the target in a viscous field, and then, when Siegfried had made some adjustment, had somehow crumpled whatever was within the light. There had been no explosion, no flying matter, just light ray, enclosing field, and “crump.” He had the feeling that Siegfried would have used the thing more often but, apparently, the thing used a lot of energy. Falkner was always reminding him that recharging wasn’t automatic here.

He guessed no one else believed Siegfried either, but if their little group had a leader, Siegfried was it. Even his brothers reserved challenging him for those times when his actions might endanger them. The group slowed their scooters, coasting until they were within a few body lengths of the blockade. Falkner hopped off his scooter to better direct a beam of light over the thing, but from the way he kept consulting the little device in his free hand, he might as well have not bothered. Julyan relied on his eyes.

He’d wondered why the tunnel’s walls and ceiling were rounded. Now he understood. The capsule fit along the sides like a spitball in a blowpipe. The top didn’t reach the roof, but was also rounded. Like the tunnel floor, the bottom of the capsule was flat. It didn’t come all the way down to the floor. There was a gap about the length of his extended arm underneath. Julyan hunkered down and saw a rectangular panel there.

“Probably for servicing the works,” Alexander said, kneeling beside him. “The entrances and exits were on either end, so that the capsule could be shot up and down the tube without the need to turn it around.”

“So,” Julyan said, moving up closer to Falkner, so he could avoid Alexander, “can we just open it on this end, work the scooters through, and go out the other end?”

“That would be the logical thing to try,” Falkner agreed. “I’m analyzing the mechanism now. Even if the powered latch is out, there would have been an override for emergencies. Well and good, but that override is where I’d set the trigger for an explosive.”

“My job,” Falkner said absently. “Although I set the bombs as often as find them.” His tone shifted, losing the conversational note. “Now that’s interesting. I don’t recall seeing that sort of texturing before. Could it be some sort of energy grid?”

Although he had no hope of understanding, Julyan looked where the other directed. The underside of the capsule was covered with an erratic coating of what looked like fine wire bristles, silvery grey and so delicate that they seemed to shimmer. The smallest cluster was about the size of the upper joint of his thumb. Larger groupings covered the surface to the extent of both of his outspread hands. Only about a third of the area was covered, leaving Julyan to wonder why they were placed so oddly.

“Patchy,” Julyan was starting to say when he realized that the things were moving. At first, he thought the sense of motion came from the flickering light. At the same moment that he remembered the seegnur’s lights didn’t flicker, the first of the prickly things dropped off and began to roll toward him and Falkner.

Julyan jumped back, crashing into Alexander. Falkner, his attention split between the rolling burr and the device in his hand, wasn’t as quick. As if blown by a strong wind, the burr raced up to him, rolling over his trouser leg before impaling itself on the back of Falkner’s left hand. Falkner cried out and tried to bat the thing away with the device he’d cradled in his right hand. A shrill yelp revealed that all he’d succeeded in doing was driving the tiny needles deeper into his skin.

More of the prickle burrs were dropping off the bottom of the capsule and rolling toward Falkner. Horrified, Julyan realized that they didn’t just roll. Each tiny needle served as a leg, pushing the burr with astonishing speed and accuracy. Falkner was trying to get to his feet, but his usual coordination was gone and he swayed unsteadily.

Toxic, Julyan thought, assessing as if confronted by some unfamiliar animal. They’ll swarm over him in a moment. If they get onto him, we won’t be able to do anything without hurting him worse or getting bit ourselves.

That left one option and he took it. Julyan grabbed Falkner under the armpits and hoisted him clear of the floor. Falkner was nearly as tall as Julyan, but his build was thin and wiry, rather than heavily muscular like that of Siegfried or Julyan himself. Stumbling back, Julyan got Falkner clear of the floor, up over one shoulder. He felt a breeze. Alexander was beside him, mounted on their scooter.

Julyan obeyed, half falling into his seat, Falkner draped across his lap. Falkner was breathing erratically and his skin was very hot. Alexander made the scooter rise, then switched on the field. Julyan looked around.

Siegfried had also raised his scooter. Julyan noted that the Old One did not occupy the passenger seat as he had before. Instead, he’d taken possession of Falkner’s scooter and was hovering. Seamus sat behind him, his expression as passive as that of a doll.

The prickle burrs swarmed beneath them, seeking a target. There were a lot more of them than had been visible on the underside of the capsule. Julyan guessed that they must have been hidden all over the thing. Their speed was incredible. Julyan found himself grateful that Alexander had brought the scooter. There was no way he could have outrun them as he had planned. They would have caught onto his clothes, rolled up his legs, found bare skin.

He shuddered, imagining tiny needles piercing his skin. They’d be like sand burrs, so fine that you wouldn’t even feel them until the poison started burning. He grabbed Falkner’s hand, reassuring himself that the burr that had attacked him remained firmly hooked into his skin. Julyan tugged free the bandana he wore around his neck and wrapped it around the thing, just in case. It wouldn’t stop it from injuring Falkner, but at least it couldn’t just drop off and get him.

Siegfried was studying the writhing silvery grey mass, his expression detached and analytical, as if his own brother wasn’t the one who was injured.

Alexander spoke sharply. “Sig, can you hold them? Falkner’s been poisoned. He’s burning up. I can’t treat him without first hooking him to the diagnostic, and I can’t do that while we’re on the scooter.”

“I think I can,” Siegfried said calmly. “Back down the tunnel. Maxwell, go with him. Offer what aid you can. If you must, use the scooter to block any burrs that come after you.”

Julyan looked back as Alexander set their scooter in motion. The prickle burrs had stopped their aimless rolling and were now shooting tiny needles up at Siegfried, but the needles couldn’t penetrate the defensive field. The burrs seemed to realize this. Julyan’s last glimpse of Siegfried, before Alexander whipped them around a bend, was of the burrs rolling onto each other. Their prickles meshed, enabling them to bond into a larger mass, thereby overcoming their limitations of size and height.

Julyan thought of how he’d seen a swarm of bees attack, no one bee very large, but the entirety more than enough to kill a far larger opponent.

“I hope Siegfried’s careful,” Alexander said, bringing the scooter to a halt and motioning for Julyan to dismount and lay Falkner on the floor. He removed what Julyan already knew was a sort of portable hospital from the scooter and started attaching tubes and wires. “Those things might have more than whatever poison they used on Falkner. What if they can generate something that will cancel the scooter’s field?”

It seemed like a very real possibility. From the talk of the last several days, Julyan had gathered that anything the Danes could do they assumed the Old Imperials also could have done—and far more efficiently.

“Shall I warn him to be alert for such?” the Old One asked. “I can operate the communication panel.”

“Do that,” Alexander said, “and if you can manage to both keep an eye open for any of those burrs coming toward us and remote monitor what Siegfried is doing, that would be good. Guarding gets first priority, though.”

“Neurotoxin. Type unknown,” he muttered, speaking as much to himself as to the others. “No surprise. A generalized anidote has been administered. The fever’s a puzzle, though. Most neurotoxins don’t cause a fever. The victim dies from respiratory failure or convulsions. Could be a secondary element, maybe a fast-acting bacteria or virus. Probably won’t spread except by body fluid contact. Too dangerous otherwise. Still … Won’t hurt to…”

He made a few adjustments to the box and the fluid pumping into Falkner changed from clear yellow to brilliant orange.

Alexander looked at Julyan. “I’ve done what I can. Even if there was a secondary component, Falkner’ll probably survive it. We were proofed against everything any of us could think of before we left home. Still, Falkner wouldn’t have had a chance if you hadn’t pulled him out of there. I won’t forget that. I promise you. I won’t forget that.”

Despite the disturbing aspects of Griffin’s experience with the blue spavek, he remained eager to find out who else in their small group might be able to operate one of the suits. He was equally interested in learning which of the suits might be better suited to his abilities—abilities that Ring had hinted were not fully awakened. That didn’t mean he couldn’t get the suit ready.

“We know where the emergency release is now,” Griffin explained to Terrell, “so no one need be overwhelmed like I was. And it would be very interesting to know more.”

Terrell looked at him sidelong. “Interesting? Why? Those things are dangerous. I think the seegnur were right to lock them away. We of Artemis have been content not knowing about them. If you want them, then take them away from our planet. Take this whole complex if you will, but leave us alone.”

Griffin was shocked. “I thought you would be the most eager. You’ve never struck me as a coward.”

“I’m not,” Terrell said steadily. “But I’ve also never been one to leap from a cliff into an icy lake simply because someone dared me to take the plunge. Compared to putting on one of these spaveks—these suits that invade your mind and body alike for the purpose of permitting you to spread death and destruction—compared to that, jumping into an icy lake and seeing if you drown before you freeze—that seems sane!”

Terrell turned away, pointedly leaving behind his stack of meticulous drawings. Griffin stopped him with a hand on his arm. Ring had hinted that whatever psionic ability Griffin had was associated with his link to Terrell. He hadn’t forgotten how the first time he could feel Terrell’s emotions when they had both been awake had been immediately after his experimentation with the spavek. The acute awareness had faded within a few hours, but what might happen if Terrell also experimented with the spavek? What if they both wore the blue spavek in sequence, then tried to maintain the greater awareness afterwards?

He had to convince Terrell to at least try. “Terrell, you didn’t complain when Ring started examining the suits.”

“Ring is a rule unto himself. Ring said that he did what he did because if he didn’t disaster would come. I don’t hear him pressing the rest of us to follow his example. Is Ring’s success what’s got to you? Do you envy him his splashy rig?”

Griffin did envy Ring his easy use of the spavek. He thought about denying it, realized Terrell would never believe him.

“I don’t envy him, not the way you mean, not enough to do something foolish. I don’t want to take Ring’s suit from him, but I would like to see if I can operate one myself. Think of the potential!”

“I am. I can’t get what those suits can do out of my mind. The thought gives me nightmares.”

Terrell’s tone made clear that he would not discuss the matter further. Moreover, from how he pointedly walked out of the test arena, he was also rejecting any further involvement with the spaveks.

Griffin started to pursue him, to remind him about that splash in Spirit Bay and what it might mean, but he knew what the factotum’s reply would be—wait until Adara came back with her report. Then they’d know if anything had happened after the splash. Hadn’t Griffin himself been inclined to dismiss the event as nothing more than falling space trash? Griffin cursed himself. He still didn’t think the splash was anything significant, but his own words had robbed him of a possible tool. He considered trying the argument anyhow, then decided to wait until Terrell had cooled off. Instead, he turned his attention to Ring.

Ring shrugged. “Very soon, it will not matter. If you must try, then Bruin.”

“Earlier you said something about the bear flying in orange arms. I don’t recall a suit colored orange. Which one did you mean?”

Ring showed him. The body of the suit was a pearlized ivory white, but the joint covers, helmet, and boots were a brilliant metallic orange. Griffin wondered if the fact that this one had been designed in two colors indicated alterations to an original design or if this suit had been farther along in its design, so that ornamental flourishes had been added.

We know so little about the Old Imperials, what they valued, what they disdained. Artemis is their greatest surviving artifact, but since it was crafted as an escape from their routine lives, it is a text you need to interpret by trying to guess what was left out.

“You did a lot of clean-up on your suit,” Griffin said to Ring, inspecting the white and orange suit with admiration. “How much prep do you think is needed before we can try this one?”

Ring ran a finger along the spavek’s shimmering torso, drawing a wiggly snake in the fine layer of powdery dust. “More than you wish to give, less than I gave. I will put my time to polish and prepare. You find the words to convince bear to become butterfly.”

“Fair enough,” Griffin said. He smiled at Ring. “That spavek’s colors do look something like a butterfly, don’t they?”

He hurried out, shaping arguments in his mind. If he couldn’t make a spavek work himself, the next best thing was learning what he could from the experiences of others. Maybe that way he’d grasp whatever intangible element he was missing.

Maybe, he thought, half hiding the thought even from himself, that’s how I’ll be able to win Terrell over, show him I’m willing, even eager to share what’s here, that my hunger is for knowledge, not destructive power.

He broke into a run, imagining the group of them soaring within the winds in shining armor, knights of the blue skies, spreading wisdom and collecting knowledge wherever they went, unrestricted by the limitations of travel by horse or ship or foot. The vision was glorious, absolutely glorious.

Adara found that the best way to brief Sand Shadow about what she’d learned from Willowee was to tell Artemis, for the planetary intelligence was able to communicate with relative ease with each of them. From there, Adara went on to ask if Artemis herself had any idea what might have happened in Spirit Bay.

“From the beaches I felt the surging waters,” Artemis replied. “That much is as true as you were told and even worse. The waters were hot in some places, as if they held quenched fire.”

“But you didn’t try to find out what had caused that heat?” Adara tried to hold her frustration inside, but Artemis sensed it nonetheless.

“I have no eyes such as you mean them,” the neural network retorted, “and you will not give yours to me. The interlocking network of mycelium is yet incomplete. Later, perhaps I will be able to grow eyes for myself. For now, I am all touch, a little taste—although that is not taste as you know it, but taste as a plant tastes. I cannot hear, nor can I smell. How am I to know what fell into the waters of the bay? Enough that it was hot enough to kill me in some places. That is all I know. Was I to surge more bits of myself into the water so they could die as well?”

The sense of someone else in her head that was Artemis present remained, but didn’t respond. Adara drew in a deep breath and tried again.

“Do you remember how it was in the days of the seegnur? Could you see then?”

A long pause, filled not so much with flickering images as with sensations that gave the impression of being images. From sorting through the mingled auditory and olfactory information that sometimes flowed to her from Sand Shadow, Adara had experience with something similar, but at least Sand Shadow used visual images to tie the others together.

A gusty sigh, echoed—or so it seemed—by the breath of wind against Adara’s cheek. “I cannot remember how I was. What I know is what is known to me from the one who was midwife to my rebirth. That one saw, heard, tasted, caught odors upon the wind. For it, touch was the least significant. Although it felt vibration, it did not appear to have tactile sensation. Torn between what I am, what I have, and what I think I should have, I am so very lost.”

Adara wished she could reach out and touch the other, hug her as Bruin had hugged little Adara, stroke her as Adara had stroked spot-furred Sand Shadow. However, no matter how she pitied the other, Adara could not accept what Artemis was asking. Would she remain herself if she let the other even further in? Artemis was a world. She was just a huntress.

“I wish you were not going to that Leto place again,” Artemis said after a time. “I do not like that I cannot share with you, find you, find Sand Shadow … Can’t you make the others come out of that place?”

“I would like nothing more,” Adara said. “If you could locate another place where the seegnur’s artifacts remain intact, I could coax Griffin forth.”

But even as Adara shaped the thought, she wondered. Would it make a difference? Griffin’s goals had shifted since the day he had accepted that his shuttle was lost to him and with it his ability to contact the ship that awaited him in orbit.

The pull that brought him to Artemis was the desire to learn more about the seegnur, to have bragging rights on the finding of this planet. Then he was tugged by the desire to find a way off the planet. Perhaps he would have left at once to replace what he had lost. Perhaps he would have stayed and continued his research. Now, however, it is as if he has forgotten that he is stranded, and his only desire is to learn what he can of the seegnur’s doings here.

Lights in the Sanctum. Footprints in mud where there should have been flood. Something was definitely not right. Adara did not know what, but she would have bet her night-seeing eyes against a chunk of stale bread that whatever it was the Old One Who Is Young was at the heart of it. She shivered and picked up her pace.

mycorrhizal connections

linking species

crossing barriers

complex network

Choosing for the larger life

Feeling the joy

Shaping the spores